Margaret Irwin

Margaret Hardinge Irwin (13 January 1858 – 1940) was a Scottish suffragist and labour activist who held important posts in the trade union movement.

Early life Irwin was born on 13 January 1858. She was born at sea off the coast of Peru on board the ship Lord Hardinge, from which she took her middle name. Her father James Ritchie Irwin was the captain of the Lord Handinge and her mother was Margaret Hunter Irwin . and was educated privately and at the High School of Dundee. She then studied at the University of St Andrews, from which she received a "Lady Literate in Arts" (LLA) degree, followed by attendance at the Glasgow School of Art and Queen Margaret College. She then became involved in the women's rights movement, and also bought and ran a fruit farm in Blairgowrie.

Activism

Trade unionism In 1891, Irwin became the full-time Scottish organising secretary of the Women's Protective and Provident League(WPPL ). Irwin decided not to stand for re-election and became the secretary of the Scottish Council for Women's Trades (SCWT). She frequently served as the SCWT delegate to the STUC over the next decade.

In 1892, Irwin was appointed to the Royal Commission of Labour as a Lady Assistant Commissioner. She wrote detailed reports about the conditions experienced by women working in laundries, tailoring and sweated trades. Irwin also exchanged correspondence on sweated workshops with the National Union of Women Workers (NUWW).

The Glasgow Council for Women's Trades (later the Scottish Council for Women's Trades) under her chairmanship, also delivered lectures on the ethics of shopping. The meeting, chaired by Watson Reid heard that "there was no such things as a bargain, because if a thing was produced at less than the current rate somebody had to pay for it. The remedy for this sweating and ill-payment was exclusive preferential dealing with shops where fair conditions prevailed and the religious boycotting of any shop where these were not to be found" The Council also worked with Conservative Party politician John McAusland Denny to introduce a bill for the "compulsory provision of seats behind the counter for lady assistants in shops" that became the Seats for Shop Assistants Act 1899.

Women's suffrage Irwin's first motion to the STUC in 1897 was on the topic of women's suffrage. In 1902, Irwin was a re-founding member, alongside Marion Gilchrist and Janie Allen, and the secretary of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Association for Women's Suffrage (GWSAWS). Many of the women involved in the reestablishment of the organisation were also part of the Glasgow Council for Women's Trades.

Irwin was nominated by the GWSAWS to attend the National Convention for the Civil Rights of Women, held in London on 16 and 17 October 1903. Irwin resigned from the association in 1907, to join the more militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). She also addressed the new Hillhead branch of the Women's Freedom League in 1908.

Later life By the 1920s, Irwin was focusing much of her time on her Blairgowrie fruit farm, developing model housing for workers there. She also wrote articles about women's work for the Glasgow Herald.

Irwin was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1927.

The SCWT dissolved in 1939, and Irwin died the following year on 23 January 1940 in Glasgow.

Publications

Irwin, Margaret Hardinge (1893) The conditions of women's work in laundries: report of an inquiry conducted for the Council of the Women's Protective and Provident League of Glasgow. Irwin, Margaret Hardinge (1896) Women's industries in Scotland: read before the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 18 March 1896. From the Proceedings of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow Irwin, Margaret Hardinge (1900) Home work amongst women: report of an inquiry conducted for the Glasgow Council for Women's Trades. Irwin, Margaret Hardinge & Smith, George Adam (1902) The problem of home work.